Clinical trials – edible vaccines – part 4

a.Malaria

Anti-malaria edible vaccines in transgenic tomato plants where different transgenic plants express different antigenic type(s) were proposed by scientists. Immunizing individuals against 2–3 antigens and against each stage of the life cycle of the multistage parasite is an efficient, inexpensive and safe way of vaccination.

Tomatoes with varying sizes, shapes and colors carrying different antigens can make the vaccines easily identifiable by layman.

b.Others

Transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants can produce a fusion protein consisting of LT-B and early secretory antigen ESAT-6 of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, demonstrating both the antigens by ELISA.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) pneumonia expressed in tomato and potato plants, has shown encouraging results in mice. Further clinical trials are being planned. 'Apple juice'-based RSV vaccine is also being developed.

Apart from these, edible vaccines have also been developed against

Haemorrhagic disease in rabbits – vehicles are Tobacco, Potato

Foot and Mouth disease of agricultural disease of animals – vehicles are Arabidopsis, Alfalfa and Arabidopsis and

Coronavirus in pigs – vehicles are Tobacco and Maize.

References:

a. An edible vaccine for malaria using transgenic tomatoes of varying sizes, shapes and colors to carry different antigens Kamal Chowdhury, Omar Bagasra Medical hypotheses 1 January 2007 (volume 68 issue 1 Pages 22-30 DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2006.04.079)

b. Lal P, Ramachandran VG, Goyal R, Sharma R. Edible vaccines: Current status and future. Indian J Med Microbiol [serial online] 2007 [cited 2008 May 2];25:93-102. Available from: http://www.ijmm.org/text.asp?2007/25/2/93/32713

c. http://www.molecularfarming.com/ediblevaccine.html